Why traditional sales training is missing the point

Most sales training focuses directly on salespeople.

While this is not a problem in itself, the issue lies in the way the training is approached – it’s generally about telling people to do something differently. Even if the audience is receptive and enthusiastic about the training, it tends to be quickly forgotten once back in the real world of quarter-end and sales quotas.

Jim’s Approach

Jim’s approach is different in two key ways:

1. It starts with the leaders
The single biggest influence on a sales team’s behaviour is the leader.

Jim helps leaders to become aware of just how influential they are. Then he helps turn that influence into a positive and lasting impact on a salesperson’s behaviour and performance.

This is not about putting aside hours or days for coarching every week. No-one has that luxury, least of all sales leaders. It’s about bringing sales coaching into the daily interactions with the team so that it happens naturally and intuitively.

2. Jim doesn’t ‘tell’. Instead, he helps people to come to a realisation
Behaviour can change in an instant and that change can be permanent.

What makes this happen is when someone realises something for themselves. This “Aha!” moment can be triggered by an experience, a conversation, a question or a demonstration. The result is that the person intuitively knows what to do. There is no need to make a conscious decision, to make commitments, or to be motivated by someone else.

This dynamic is at the very core of Jim’s approach. This type of behavioural change is rarely achievable with conventional sales training, but it’s the only way to achieve the lasting change that drives consistent performance.

It’s why Jim doesn’t train in the conventional sense. Instead, he coaches and facilitates so that people can see and decide something for themselves.

Why the middle 60%?

Who you coach is just as important as how you coach.

The top 20% of your sales team are your star performers, they are already doing what’s needed. The bottom 20% is likely made up of new hires and underperformers.

Many sales leaders skew or focus their coaching efforts towards the underperformers. The real payoff, however, is in the middle 60% who hit target sometimes, but not regularly.